Equipment Descriptions

Need to describe equipment lists in some generic format that is compatible across multiple game systems. Will use namespaces as for characters. Weapons and armour will need backporting to this new format.

An item on the list might look something like this:

<itemname="Padlock"quality="1"><category>Adventuring</category><importance>1</importance><availability>3</availability><short>A poor quality padlock.</short><description><para>
A poor quality padlock, designed to keep a door or chest shut. Requires
a relatively big key, and can be quite easy to pick. Often it is easier to just
break it though, by either hitting it very hard, or levering it open.
</para></description><weight>250</weight><material>iron</material><cost>2000</cost><devicexmlns="http://yagsbook.sourceforge.net/xml/d20"><difficulty>20</difficulty><hardness>3</hardness><hitpoints>5</hitpoints><break>20</break></device><devicexmlns="http://yagsbook.sourceforge.net/xml/yags"><difficulty>15</difficulty><soak>10</soak><toughness>1</toughness><break>30</break></device></item>

Statistics

Some items require in-game statistics. These will be denoted with namespaced elements, so in the above example there are lock stats for both d20 and Yags.

The format of the statistics depend on the type of item. Some possible elements are given below.

Element

Used for

armour

Armour and other forms of protective clothing.

weapon

Items designed to be used as weapons.

herb

Herbs, drugs and poisons.

device

A mechanical device. This is sort of a catch-all category, and it's difficult to know whether it will be possible to cover everything successfully.

book

A book. Not all game systems give these stats, but ArsMagic and Yags do.